Internet visitors are often annoyed by the dominance of unwanted emails (spam), viruses, advertisements and pornography. In order to somehow cope with malicious content, many network services began to create lists of sites containing it - blacklists, otherwise blacklists (from the English blacklist). Users of these services are protected from such content on the network, as access to the sites containing it is blocked.
Blacklists are available from the developers of major browsers: Internet Explorer, Opera, Mozilla, Google, Chrome and others. Antivirus vendors also create blacklists, which include mainly sites known to spread viruses. Providers also have their own blacklists, because the law obliges them to protect their customers from resources containing, for example, child pornography, extremist literature and other prohibited content. Administrators of social networks such as Facebook, VKontakte, Odnoklassniki and My World Mail.ru also have their own blacklists.
Blacklisting is a convenient tool for regulating the content presented to users for viewing. For example, the manager or the information security service of an enterprise enter into them resources on the Internet that can damage the network and computers of employees and distract from the production process. Also, all sites through which a leak of classified information can occur are blocked.
You can also use blacklists at home. First of all, these are blacklists created by an Internet provider and an antivirus developer. They are regularly updated to provide reliable protection. List makers can be helped by pointing out unwanted sites, reporting spam, or illegal content. In addition, there is also a "Parental Control" function. If the owner of the computer does not want his minor children to visit some pages, he can configure this function in the browser and in the antivirus. In addition to blocking illegal content, Parental Control will restrict access to resources containing, for example, scenes of violence, sex, profanity, and any other, for which you will need to manually blacklist them.
In 2012, Russia adopted a law establishing a national service to create a general list of sites containing illegal content: child pornography, instructions for the manufacture, purchase and sale of drugs, and information on methods of suicide. The controversy around this law in society does not subside. On the one hand, it contributes to better protection of users from unwanted content, on the other hand, it contradicts Art. 29, parts 4 and 5 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, that is, it limits citizens' rights to free search and dissemination of information. Moreover, thanks to this law, it will be possible to block websites without a trial, and not the den of pedophilia and drug addiction, but, for example, opposition information resources, may come under attack. This is the case in the PRC, with their "Great China Firewall". But time will tell how the “big Russian blacklist” will work.
